I once wrote to Kemble Scott, author of one of my most favoritest books ever, SoMa. (Not for the faint of heart. I don’t recommend it for everyone. Just people who are comfortable with throwing around the word “tranny” with gay friends, who know people with tattoos in inconceivable places, and who don’t think the music video for “Justify My Love” is full of “freaky shit.” If you’re voting McCain, just stop.) I asked him, via the professional messaging vehicles of MySpace, why he thought Internet celebrity bloggers seemed to all come from New York, and why hot blogging startups of late seemed to be coming from New York as well. (In my note, I called the New York ring of bloggers and blog platform-creators “incestuous.” It seriously comes off that way to me.)
His response: Industry location, industry location, industry location…
My observation is that the ones from the Bay Area that are exceptionally influential and popular are those that cover technology.
Kara Swisher of All Things D (she’s affiliated with the Wall Street Journal) and Valleywag (owned by Gawker) are devoured by folks in the tech world. That should come as no surprise, since (with Silicon Valley), SF is the tech center of the universe.
Beyond that, the blogs I see from here tend to be really personal in nature, like diaries or journals. God of Biscuits is a good example. Some writers, like Dog Poet, have blogs, but I don’t see them getting any traction.
The new author social networking site Redroom.com has a blog component, but I don’t see it being effectively used yet, even though it’s so simple even an author can make it work.
I think you’ve spotted something. Why has NYC trumped the Bay Area in this way? Maybe it’s because NYC is still the center for publishing and media. Maybe there are simply more frustrated journos there than anywhere else.
So there you have it. In order to be a “successful” (meaning you’ve got some sort of following) “personal” (meaning one that does not focus on one single topic and often tags things “life”) blogger in the Bay Area, you’ve somehow got to break the glass ceiling that “Only the techie survive.”
Brittney Gilbert, who aggregates snippets of Bay Area blogs for CBS’ Eye on Blogs, has a list of questions that have come up in her mind while she scours the Internet for quotable chunks:
- Is my time better spent scanning content or reading content?
- Do readers prefer shorter posts that serve primarily as aggregation or would they prefer longer, more in-depth posts with original content from me?
- How much of their post can I excerpt without being perceived as a mooch?
- Should I be linking to “the big boys” as often as I do? Sure, their content is often better, but they have corporate backing, a ton of readers already or both. Should I concentrate solely on highlighting independent bloggers?
- Should I critique local media? What about my own television station’s coverage?
- Why aren’t people commenting at Eye on Blogs? Is it the (admittedly) shitty interface? Is it my own lack of interaction on local blogs? Is it that Bay Area bloggers are already “connected” to existing communities?
- How much nepotism is a bad thing?
- Is this edgy or otherwise possibly offensive post going to bring in traffic or get me sent to the office?
- Should I refer to myself as “I”? Or “we”? Or at all?
- Should post titles reflect the thesis of the post being linked or should it be a reflection of my own opinion? Or neither?
- (more as I think of them)
What to post and how to post it – always the issues. There is, of course, an easy solution to all of this, this inexplicable drive to build credibility based upon a mythical value system. That solution is: Set your expectations low.
Me, personally? I think I’ll just nix them altogether.
